Lilli's Quest Read Online Free Page A

childish,” Helga exclaims one day. “I will not continue to be trapped in here like an animal.” She walks away from Lilli, declaring that she is going to search for an escape hatch in the garden well. Lilli shakesher head in despair at Helga’s foolishness and tries to concentrate on reading a peculiar English book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland .
    After a long while, Helga returns. She is flushed and perspiring, and her hands and knees match the dirt color of her khaki skirt and blouse. “I’ve found a place behind the shrubs,” she reports excitedly, “where the wall is crumbling and the earth beneath it is soft.”
    Lilli jumps to her feet, letting the annoying Alice book fall to the ground. “You are out of your mind,” she retorts. “What are you thinking? Even if you could make a space to wriggle through, where would you go?”
    â€œSkating,” Helga replies triumphantly. “Oh, Lilli, remember how we loved to skate before we were forced to wear the yellow stars. On the ice, in the park, such a wonderful feeling of flying away, of freedom! I wear no yellow star now. Who would know what I am? I could be just any child out for play.”
    Lilli grabs her sister’s arm almost roughly. “Helga, come to your senses. Germany will soon be at war. It is already more dangerous than ever for a Jew in hiding to be discovered. You heard what Gerda said about the need to perhaps hide us in the coal bin. You could ruin everything—for Mutti, for Elspeth, even for the Bayers.”
    Helga shrugs off Lilli’s arm. Nothing more is said that day about Helga’s plan to slither out of their stronghold for a skating outing.
    * * *
    For the rest of the summer, Lilli keeps careful watch over her sister. When the two of them are in the garden during the oppressive days of August, trying to cope with its dankness and humidity, Lilli barely takes her eyes off Helga, who sulkily drags herself off to some distant perch with her schoolbag of reading assignments.
    Sure enough, there comes an afternoon when Lilli looks up to where Helga was sitting. Her sister is nowhere in sight! Lilli quickly makes her way to the spot Helga had shown her, beneath the crumbling wall. The hole, now larger than when Lilli first saw it, shows signs of having recently been disturbed. Lilli, her heart pounding, contemplates following Helga out into the dangerous world of the open streets. But suppose she cannot find her sister and they are both discovered missing? Suppose they are both apprehended by the Hitler police and found to have no identity cards—an immediate sign that they are hidden Jews?
    Lilli paces the area around the hole in the wall. Where is the schoolbag that Helga brought with her into the garden? Then, Helga’s deception becomes clear to Lilli. The schoolbag did not contain books; it contained Helga’s roller skates.
    Anguished minutes go by and add up to nearly three-fourths of an hour. Gerda may appear at any moment to call the girls indoors. What will Lilli tell her? How farcan they trust Grossmutter’s loyal servant, whose true feelings toward them have always been a mystery?
    Lilli tracks the garden restlessly, returning every few minutes to examine the hole in hope of Helga’s return. She is at the point of despair when she hears a rustling in the shrubbery behind her and there, rising from a crouch to her full height, is Helga, her skates in one hand and her empty schoolbag in the other. Her dark eyes are flashing, and she wears a challenging smile. A single tear of bright red blood descends from a cut high up on her forehead.
    Lilli dashes forward. “What have you done? Oh, Helga . . .”
    Helga touches her forehead lightly, glances at her reddened, glistening finger, and continues to smile. “No, Lilli, it’s not what you think. No one threw stones at me. The other children did not chase me. I fell, that was all. The